My adventure to Carrefour (the supermarket)

After a day of traveling (including the time changes)--seven hour flight from Chicago to Dublin, two hour layover, one hour flight Dublin to Paris (CDG), hour and a half hour wait for the TGV to Lille--I finally made it to my studio in Lille. Luckily I was picked up at the train station by an international club ambassador or else I may not have found my building. My studio is bigger than I expected and came furnished with a bed, closet, dresser, bookshelf, table, desk, two chairs, fridge stove, and a bathroom. Even though I arrived in the late afternoon, I was so exhausted from not really sleeping on my flights that I just put my bedsheets on and called it a night. I slept like a baby besides the fact that I didn't have a pillow.

Waiting for my train at Charles de Gaulle

I'm still getting used to French being everywhere, but I expected it. At the airport in Paris, at least the French was slow and there was english to supplement whatever I didn't understand, but here it's all really, really fast. Even when people realize that I'm American, it seems like they are speaking twice as fast on purpose. For the most part I can understand everything, but hopefully my ability to speak will catch up on my listening skills.

I have yet to see the school yet, it's about a 10 minute walk from where I live, but this morning I decided to go to the supermarket which is a block away from where I live. I've heard of Carrefour before, but I didn't realize the magnitude of the store. It's the world's biggest chain of hypermarkets/supermarkets. Just imagine a Safeway on steroids. Needless to say, it was quite the adventure. I needed to get some stuff for my studio, but even those things were hard to find. It took me an hour to navigate through the store and find the stuff I needed (I didn't get all of it). The selection of things at the store was so different that I just spent a lot of time looking at the variety of goods. One of the highlights, well actually lowlights, was when I checked out. I had paid for everything but there weren't bags for my stuff. I ask the lady if she had a bag and she said to me "trois cents," which translates to three cents. In my head I thought she said "trois cent," which translates to 300. Immediately I asked, her three hundred what. After a few exchanges I realized what she was saying, but then it took me awhile to figure out what coins I could use to pay (Euro coins are so confusing).

Most of the international students will be arriving over the next few days, a lot of them don't speak any French so that will be interesting. Although France is different than home I love it here and I'm excited for all the adventures that will ensue over the next four months.